


Not That Kind Of Doctor

by joss80



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Divergence, Deductions, First Kiss, John Watson is a Bit Not Good, M/M, Sherlock Has a Military Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 02:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18459479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joss80/pseuds/joss80
Summary: Sherlock finds out that he isn't the only one who's been deducing, and that John isn't a military doctor. Based on a fic request photo of John that states, "I didn't actually go to Afghanistan. I'm a dentist. I'm not a soldier, I just wanted to take advantage of your military kink."





	Not That Kind Of Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> My first JohnLock fic! It's set a month after John and Sherlock first meet, and based on this fic request/photo:
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> This was a ton of fun to write, which I HAD to do immediately after seeing the photo. Oh gosh, what fab fic-spiration!! Information in conversations is consistent with John and Sherlock's first meeting at Bart's, but not necessarily with anything after that. I also put in a little nod to Martin Freeman's film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - see if you can spot it :)

The chilly late-winter wind whipped through the overcast streets of London, and Sherlock Holmes tugged his scarf a little bit tighter around his neck as he hurried out of the tube station. His left hand held a brown paper bag, and in his right was his phone. He glanced down at the screen, although he had memorized the address long before he’d left 221B Baker Street some twenty minutes ago. It wasn’t too far now… just a left, and a right across the road, a hundred metres down and….

There it was: Richmond Park Surgery. He strode purposefully up the 4 steps and pulled the front door open with a slightly dramatic flourish. The receptionist looked up from her computer, did a double take, and smiled at him in a beguiling fashion.

He tried not to sneer or snort.

“Can I help you?” She asked, and the too-thick mascara weighed her eyelids down as she tried to flutter them at him.

_Double application of mascara - she didn’t go home last night and wasn’t able to properly remove her make-up. Slight bruise on her clavicle, indicative of heavy kissing. Remnants of dry shampoo in the parting of her hair - she overslept and got ready in a hurry._

Oh God, how did John deal with these people every day?

“I need to see Doctor Watson. He left his lunch at home.” Sherlock held up the brown paper bag, shook it slightly for effect, and raised his eyebrows at her as if to say _Draw your own conclusions._

He did, of course, notice - with some satisfaction - the flash of disappointment that crossed her face. But he didn’t like the next expression, that of confusion, nearly as much.

“Oh,” she said, half in apology, “You’ve got the wrong place. Doctor Watson is next door, I think.” She pointed to the left and Sherlock looked at the wall, perplexed. “Just, literally, right next door. Can’t miss it,” she added.

He nodded his head in thanks and headed out with a less stylish exit. This was preposterous. Why would John have given him the wrong address? His phone location data for the 24.8 days that they’d know each other certainly showed him being here all the time, so it didn’t make sense that -

_Richmond Park Dental_

Sherlock cocked his head to the side.

_A smile for a lifetime._

He cocked his head in the other direction.

Jay Chopra, BDS  
Helen Swanson, BDS  
John Watson, DDS

Doctor of Den-

Sherlock lunged up the steps, slammed the door open, and glared at the receptionist.

“Sir,” she said, her voice stern with warning and remarkable composure. “What can I help you with?”

“John,” he sputtered out, half enraged and half in disbelief. He held up the brown paper bag. “Lunch.” And then he shook it up nicely, because that’s what the situation deserved.

Some sort of recognition seemed to dawn in her eyes, and her facial features softened slightly.

“You must be Sherlock. Just give me a sec, he’s just finishing up with a patient.” She disappeared into the labyrinth of rooms in the back, and Sherlock didn’t know quite what to do with himself. He wouldn’t debase himself so much as to sit on a chair. Sitting didn’t exactly denote angry, pissed off, and betrayed. He tried leaning against the wall, but it felt too casual and not authoritative enough. He eventually settled on standing with the lunch sack clutched at his side, stiffly formal and unrepentant.

An elderly woman appeared from the recesses of the dental practice, followed by the receptionist who nodded at him and said “Third room on the right.”.

 _Into battle,_ Sherlock thought, _if, unlikely as it now seemed, John had even set foot on the continent of Asia._

He rounded the corner, counted the doors, and came face to face with _Doctor_ John Watson who was leaning against the doorway in a casual and yet surprisingly authoritative manner.

Sherlock pulled up suddenly, surprised.

“John.” 

It was all he could manage to get out, because he suddenly didn’t quite know what to say. All the high emotions and choice words that had been festering in his mind for the past few minutes were suddenly in complete opposition to the familiarity and comfort and, regrettably, attraction that the presence of John Watson always evoked in him.

The fact that the man had somehow managed to pull off what Sherlock himself couldn’t while leaning against a wall further muddled him.

Then he remembered the - now undoubtedly smashed - sandwich and apple in the bag and shook it again for good measure.

“I brought you your lunch. Got _quite_ the surprise when the loose receptionist at the surgery next door suggested I might find you here.”

“I see.” John eyed him thoughtfully for a second. Then, “Well, come on in.” He turned to usher Sherlock into the small office beyond, and shut the door quietly behind them. Sherlock eyed the small desk with computer and chair, and once again struggled with how to stand while John seemed unnervingly comfortable.

“Do you, ah, want to sit?” John offered, more as a formality, but Sherlock shook his head. Sitting would put him in a submissive position, and he planned on using his full height, vast vocabulary, and sharp wit to his full advantage.

“No.” Sherlock scowled at him, and hoped the disdain would be obvious. “How long did you plan on continuing this farce for?”

And he found himself horrified that the disdain sounded more like disappointment, and the scowl on his face felt more like a forlorn frown.

“I didn’t-” John started, then paused. He gazed at Sherlock across the small space, and cleared his throat. “I didn’t lie. You deduced, and I didn’t correct you. I honestly didn’t have a chance to correct you, you monopolized the conversation so bloody much.”

Sherlock glowered and brought the encounter word-for-word into his mind, but apparently John somehow remembered it explicitly too.

“I did actually go to Afghanistan, but not as a soldier. I’m a dentist… obviously,” he said, gesturing at the walls around them.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, and felt something sharp clench in his chest and the misrepresentation.

“I was visiting a friend of mine who’s a photojournalist, and our vehicle drove over an IED. Knocked us down a ravine, and I broke my tibia and had to have shrapnel removed from my shoulder. I hightailed it out of there and back home after that, but wasn’t able to work for six months and fell into some financial hardship. It was my last week of doctor-mandated cane use when we met. I wasn’t too sad when I realized I’d forgotten it at Angelo’s.”

“But Mike?” Sherlock asked, growing more confused by the minute.

“Mike in the lab, or Mike in general?” John asked with an eyebrow arched. “You were so busy trying not to notice me that I don’t think you paid any attention to the looks that were passing between Mike and myself. We _do_ know each other from Bart’s - it’s not just a medical teaching hospital, there’s a dental institute attached to it as well. I was there for a time and we met during a lunch break one day and spent the rest of the year trading stories about our chosen professions. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years before that morning, but every bit of that story was true.”

Sherlock appraised John with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. The smirk on John’s face grew incrementally in return, and Sherlock was so unnerved by it that he huffed out a sharp breath then pursed his lips in consternation. John had the knowledge of a medical doctor and the deportment of a soldier. The rest of the pieces just didn’t make sense together.

“I do regret the misrepresentation, Sherlock, but you made one crucial error,” John said, presumably taking pity on him. Sherlock wanted to sneer and say something like _unlikely_ , but he decided to hear John’s thoughts before pouncing in with his own. “You assumed that you were the only one capable of deductions…,” John continued with a confident smile, “and I allowed you to continue believing that.”

_What?_

He was vaguely aware of his mouth falling open, and of a slight ringing noise in his ears. It was preposterous, absolutely preposterous. John didn’t _deduce._

“Oh but I do,” John said, and Sherlock’s head whipped up in surprise. “I don’t think you know,” he continued, “that I moonlighted with the Ambulance Service while doing my BDS, and I completed my DDS after that. The military wanted me alright, but for interrogations. I am so, so similar to you, Sherlock,” John stressed, his voice tight with tension, “but it just held no interest for me. I didn’t want to be a lone wolf in the desert. I didn’t imagine I could have something like this, a partnership with someone like you, until that day the woman in pink died. And after that, it was more a technicality than anything else. I wasn’t working for Scotland Yard, per se, so in my mind it didn’t matter that I wasn’t really a medical doctor. I knew enough. And I was with you, doing what we both loved. I may have been playing dumb for the past month, but I like to think my heart was in the right place.”

Sherlock found _his_ heart struggling between affection and rage. This man, this imposter-who-wasn’t-really-one, had bested him at his own game and that irked him. But there was one more thing that he simply didn’t understand.

“Why?” he asked, and his voice came out a lot more hoarse that he would have liked. “Why do it all? Why not just correct me after a day or two and be done with the deception?”

John tilted his head slightly and sighed.

“Honestly?”

And Sherlock nodded, nodded as vehemently as he could. He’d given up on the pretense of authoritative composure at some long-distant point in their conversation and now, as much as the dishonesty stung, he still found himself oh-so-curious about the man in front of him… the man who was not a military doctor, yet who continued to radiate power and command attention. It was the same and yet a completely different John Watson, and something about it was doing strange things to Sherlock’s insides.

“I’m not a soldier, I just wanted to take advantage of your military kink.”

Sherlock’s head boggled. “My what?”

“You couldn’t shut up about me and Afghanistan, and the way I carried myself and my war injuries and my haircut and my slight tan. It was blindingly obvious to everyone but you, Sherlock, and it biased your deductions. Something about the idea of my being a soldier did something for you, and I found you attractive so didn’t want to dissuade you. I knew this would all come out eventually, so I just hoped that by the time it did you’d know me well enough to not kick me out of your life.”

Sherlock could do nothing but gape at his friend for a few moments. It took some effort to pull himself together.

“So, Angelo’s?” he asked, apprehensive about the response he’d get.

“Oh I was fishing, yes, but also planting seeds while playing dumb and naive.”

John shifted a fraction of a step closer to him, and Sherlock noticed. And then, for the first time, he noticed that John noticed him noticing. John quirked an eyebrow at him, and Sherlock almost growled.

“God this is weird.”

“Having someone see right through you? Yes, it is. But hopefully it’s a good thing - that is, if you’ll still have me?”

John shifted another half-step closer and stopped, standing _at ease_. Sherlock’s pulse tried to do double time and he felt suddenly self-conscious at the knowledge that John would be able to see his jugular vein thrumming above his scarf and would notice his face reddening and his irises dilating.

“H-have you, how, exactly?” Sherlock managed to get out in a shaky voice. The confidence that he was suddenly and clearly lacking seemed to have embodied itself in John - his demure, cautious, hot military doctor blogger.

“However you want,” John said, taking a final small step to bring him face to face with Sherlock. “I hope we can still be friends, and flatmates. But maybe we can also be more.”

It was more of a statement than a question, and Sherlock made the mistake of taking a deep breath in at the images that the suggestion conjured up in his mind. The air particles that entered into his nose carried with them the distinct scent of John _John John_ and he found that he liked that idea very, very much. His head felt momentarily light from the sensory onslaught, and then John moved in even closer and brought his cheek alongside Sherlock’s.

“I suppose you’ve been through all my stuff at some point,” he whispered in Sherlock’s ear, and Sherlock’s entire body tingled at the sensation. “You would have found the army uniform, yes?”

Sherlock nodded, rendered mute for once in his life.

John drew back slowly, and let his nose brush along Sherlock’s cheek until it caressed his nose. Their lips were suddenly nudging at each other, but not quite in a kiss, and it was singularly thrilling.

John spoke against Sherlock’s mouth, their breath and lips mingling as the tension between them reached a breaking point.

“I’ll pull it out for you whenever you want.”

Sherlock found himself nodding again, reduced to primal thoughts and desires in the company of the one person that he somehow still felt safe around.

John chose that moment to press their lips properly together, and Sherlock felt his head thud against the wall behind him as their bodies aligned and his lit on fire. He gasped at his own response, and then at the insistent tongue that licked its way into his open mouth and sent electric shocks to every part of him. He would have to reconsider his transport later. Now was definitely the time to indulge in whatever John Watson wanted.

It seemed barely a few moments later that there was a light tapping on the door behind them and John drew back, looking reluctant and wide-eyed and panting delightfully.

“Your 1 o’clock is here,” sounded from the hallway beyond, and John breathed out through narrowed lips as he brought a hand up to cup Sherlock’s cheek.

“Thanks Liv. I’ll be right out,” he responded, his eyes not leaving Sherlock’s. And it was at that point that Sherlock realized that he hadn’t given John his lunch, and that the paper bag was on the floor and off to the side somewhere, cast away at some point in the midst of their little exchange.

“Sorry about your lunch,” Sherlock stated, but he wasn’t really sorry at all and they both knew it.

“Sorry about not being a military doctor,” John said in return, but he wasn’t really sorry at all and they both knew it.

“I’ll, um, see you tonight?” Sherlock asked, and although he wouldn’t admit to being desperate about anything, he was pretty intent on needing to know that John would indeed be returning to 221B Baker Street tonight.

“After work, yeah. I’ve got a root canal and two crowns to occupy me this afternoon.” John’s thumb stroked at Sherlock’s cheek, and as much as he tried not to Sherlock couldn’t quite help but lean into the intimate touch. “Lots of other nicer thoughts to occupy myself with, too,” John admitted, and they smiled shyly at each other at the acknowledgement of what had just transpired between them. He stepped back, and opened the door slowly.

“Tonight then,” Sherlock said, his deep baritone back and in full effect as he moved past the man and into the hallway. He watched as John’s eyes flared wider for a second, and smiled.

“Tonight,” John confirmed, and the look on his face was so joyful and so fond that Sherlock wanted to march right back into the room and barricade the two of them inside.

Instead, he turned and strode purposefully back towards the front door and out into the cold and cloudy afternoon. And then he strode a bit more quickly, and then he all but ran down the escalator at the tube station.

Sherlock Holmes had a bedroom to tidy.

**Author's Note:**

> According to Wikipedia, there is a Dental Institute of some sort involved with St Bart's Hospital.


End file.
